Jesus Creed

McLaren on Fundamentalism 1

From Brian McLaren’s blog, and wondering what you think of this way of putting the difference between fundamentalists and the curious (non fundamentalists)?

Quiz:When I am presented with a new idea or proposal, my first question is more likely to be …___A. Is it acceptable to my religious/ideological community or belief system?___B. Is it possibly true, valuable, and worth exploring?

If you chose A, you’re probably a fundamentalist, and probably shouldn’t read my new book because it will only get you in trouble. If you do decide to read it, don’t let your fundamentalist friends know. Hide the book in a brown paper bag, and only read it in private.

I like Brian’s stuff; “A New Kind of Christian” was very helpful to me a few years ago. But this, it seems to me, is a lame reflection of the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is always, for everyone, some dialectic between assumed belief systems and new facts and ideas. Human beings are not blank slates. Methinks Brian is sounding an awful lot like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine here, and not much like postmodern Neo.

I would echo dopderbeck above that ANKoC was very helpful but…
I think Brian’s quiz is simply another form of marketing for his book and really has little to do with the actual post-Christendom, post-modern discussion. Where Brian once argued from a both/and position, he appears to have moved to a “progressive” either/or position. Brian has become as much a fundamentalist in his religious-political belief system as those he so chooses to label.

I find this proposed dualism very unhelpful. I can either agree with him and be an open-minded person, or disagree and be fundamentalist. That sounds a bit too easy. Next time somebody disagrees with me I simply label him a fundamentalist.
When did having and thinking out of a “belief system” become bad or even an option?

“Is it acceptable to my religious / ideological community or belief system?”
What if the new idea or proposal conflicts with Scripture (or at least my interpretation of Scripture)? Am I still a fundamentalist because I am not “open” to its conception(s)?
Perhaps what McLaren means to suggest is that we should be open to new ideas or proposals without one’s fuddy-duddy, particularistic, preconceived notion(s) robbing the idea of all viability. But he certainly didn’t word it that way.

I’m willing to give McLaren a very small pass on the scope of this question since he did ask what the reader’s first question would be, not what their only question would be.
What disappoints me most is that this does not appear to be an honest question, but a way to pander to his audience. No one will read his comment and then say, “Well, I was considering buying the book, but I see from this insightful quiz that I am a fundamentalist and thus I now know this book will probably not interest me.”
The quiz is a way for the readers to congratulate themselves on their non-fundamentalism and to feel superior to all those fundamentalists who won’t “get it” and thus can’t appreciate the genius of the book they’re about to spend $24.95 on (or however much it is).
As alluded to in previous comments, this makes the purported non-fundamentalist just as much a line-drawer as the purported fundamentalist and thus nullifies the whole exercise.

Since I am a fundamentalist I do not plan to read his book. UPS just five minutes ago delivered three books, one on Windows 7, one is Creation or Evolution by Denis Alexander and the last is There is A God by Antony Flew. That hardly seems like someone with no curiosity or afraid of what their church friends would say. I am a fundamentalist in the original sense of the word in that there are certain Christian beliefs I will not compromise on. The basic things are not the doctrine held by the reformed church I attend, modes of baptism or inspiration, views on communion, view on how God created life on this planet and so on. Fundamental things are Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and his death and resurrection almost 2000 years ago or to put it another way, things that are common to all of Christianity as CS Lewis expressed it in Mere Christianity. Many other things are important but are secondary or tertiary. Probably McLaren was referring to fundies who seem highly concerned about women wearing hats in church and so on.

This seems to be mostly a marketing gimmick. For most people I think there’s a great amount of interplay between A and B. McLaren’s “test” seems to treat every proposition equally.
The “bar” of evidence required for a proposition that doesn’t fit with within your belief system (“I just saw someone floating up the stairs”) is much higher than for something that is consistent with your present belief system (“I just saw someone fall down the stairs”). Of course you can fall into a trap if you don’t have some level of “healthy skepticism” but that doesn’t mean on the other hand that we abandon the idea of interpreting the world using prior knowledge.
I consider myself to be somewhat of a fundamentalist in the positive sense of wanting to use a core set of “fundamental” knowledge that I have great confidence in to then branch out in a search for more truth. McLaren suggests I’m not “curious”, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
Or maybe I’m missing the point here, I don’t know. It just seems like he’s trying to push buttons.

Considering all the viciousness that Brian has had to contend with over the years from the fundamentalist side of the spectrum, I can’t really blame him for engaging in a little “fundie bashing” or at least “fundie tweaking” here. Perhaps this could even be considered a warning to fundamentalists that they are not going to like his new book so they shouldn’t buy it?

I suppose great minds think alike, Scot, because I wrote a response to McLaren’s “quiz” on my blog yesterday.
Honestly, I found it a little surprising that McLaren would post something like this because “A” sort of assumes an objective, independent observer and McLaren of all people should know that there’s no such thing!
Here’s a little of what I wrote in the post:
” If I?m honest with myself, I have to admit that my first question when encountering a new idea is almost always, Does this fit with my faith? It?s my default?perhaps out of habit, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because it?s part of the human condition to be wary of anything that might upset one?s current paradigm…
The difference, I suppose, is that over the past few years I?ve learned that my faith is strong enough to withstand new ideas and hard questions. I no longer let the question Does this fit with my faith? stop me from exploring…But this is a learned response for me, not a natural one. I?m afraid that my gut reaction will always be A, not B.”

This isn’t provocative. It’s disappointingly shallow. If I’m encountering a new thing, I generally think, “What do I think about this new thing?” As a person of faith, the “I” that does the thinking defines itself through a set of norms and expectations that are intrinsic to how you view and make decisions. I generally approach a new thing and ask, well, how does it relate to those values that I hold? Like, say, tolerance. Or openness to the other. Or love of one’s neighbor and even one’s enemy.
These are not things I think because I’m worried about the values in my surrounding sub-culture. I’m not going over some checklist my pastor gave me. I’m assessing it based on my own identity. We all do that. It’s…well…human.
Ah well. Maybe the book will be better.

I am a recent student in deeper theology (within the past two years) but an experienced executive in business. I am regularly amazed by the lack of slack given to people based on their own way of approaching problems and situations when it comes to non-secular people.
I like feeling superior as much as the next guy, but have you people not heard of Meyers Briggs, or Disc, or my favorite Personalysis? A person’s first reaction to a question is only relevant to a small number of people in the world. Perhaps Brian should say “then it makes you an ISFJ and if you actually blog about it then you are an ESFJ!”
I spend a lot of time telling my Managers that there are all kinds of people in the world and none are better than others (except Intp’s of course :)) If you like personalysis then there is nothing quite like comparing a red to a blue, or a green, or better yet a red-yellow to a blue-green.
I do appreciate Brian’s question, but I also think (in an overstated way) it furthers the cause of demonizing some people and objectifying their beliefs in a cruel way. I also think the fundies who would be reading his blog are asking for it.
I should probably spend more time editing this but I am an INTP type A that has a big red streak and obvious dominating tendancies.
Dave

Though McClaren presents himself as open-minded, he seems to be pretty near-sighted when he flattens out the choices as he does in that little quiz. As if those two are the only possible responses to his ideas. Though I neither claim nor deny being a fundamentalist, I think fundamentalists are more open-minded then McClaren gives them credit.

I wonder how McLaren categorize such a person:
A scientist who is an atheist because they found no measurable answers when they worked through their questions concerning God. Because the only way left to explore God was through faith – an argument that can be made for all religions – the scientist had no reason to extend faith towards any religion. Coupled with the lack of evidence of a supernatural realm, the scientist scientist concluded the absence of (a) God(s) to be true. However, the scientist does admit that should solid scientific evidence of (a) God(s) were to be found, then he/she would change their mind.

It’s a stupid joke and marketing technique to the followers of his blog. I don’t think that Mclaren is intending these as two broad, all-encompassing categories. And it’s really ironic to hear the Jesus Creed crowd crowing about how narrow Mclaren really is when we all verbally beat each other in response to the SOTU address last week.

I think the a/b question is reductive of what Seth Godin actually said in the video McLaren embedded below the question.
Godin’s explanation was helpful, because he explained at length his perspective about the difference in a fundamentalism that rejects something before it’s really considered in and a curiosity that explores something to find out if it is true or not before decided whether to reject it or accept it. It’s easy to write off those who are critical of new ideas as fundamentalists, but if we do that without actually considering their critiques, we are being equally or more “fundamentalist.” I thought Godin’s last statement was especially helpful: “What we’re seeing is that fundamentalism has really nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with an outlook, regardless of what your religion is.”
Unfortunately, out of context I think the phrase is reductive and has in this case been used as a marketing ploy to suggest that if you reject what McLaren is arguing, you’re just a fundamentalist.

As I get older I find things that alienate me from my religious community less “true,” “valuable,” and “worth exploring.”
When I was twenty I wanted to prove the rest of the world wrong. Now that I have a family I more or less want to find my role in the story. Maybe I’m a fundamentalist. I’m not losing any sleep over it. The quest for greatness is unfulfilling.

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Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).

Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004), which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. Recent books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (Paraclete, 2005), The Story of the Christ (Baker, 2006), Praying with the Church (Paraclete, 2006), and The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2007). A recent book, A Community called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), has been nominated for the Grawameyer Award. He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed (Paraclete, 2008). His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith (Baylor, 2008), a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. His most recent books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and Fasting (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

Forthcoming books include a commentary on James (Eerdmans, 2010). He is presently researching “gospel” in the earliest Christian communities.

Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say I am? (co-edited with Joseph Modica), Jesus and His Death (Baylor, 2005), A Light among the Gentiles (Fortress, 1992), A New Vision for Israel (Eerdmans, 1999), Turning to Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 2002), Galatians (Zondervan, 1993) and 1 Peter (Zondervan, 1996), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Baker, 1988), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, of The Historical Jesus in Current Study (Eisenbraun’s, 2005). He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight’s books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

McKnight’s award-winning blog, Jesus Creed, has been rated by Technorati.com as the #1 site for Emerging Church and continues to increase in readership.

Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and one grandchild: Aksel Donovan Nelson McKnight.

Scot McKnight is a widely-recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. He is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University (Chicago, Illinois). A popular and witty speaker, Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly asked to speak in local churches and educational events throughout the USA and in Denmark and South Africa. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).

Scot McKnight is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Society for New Testament Studies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including the award-winning The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others (Paraclete, 2004), which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living. Recent books include Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us (Paraclete, 2005), The Story of the Christ (Baker, 2006), Praying with the Church (Paraclete, 2006), and The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2007). A recent book, A Community called Atonement (Abingdon, 2007), has been nominated for the Grawameyer Award. He broadened his Jesus Creed project in writing a daily devotional: 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed (Paraclete, 2008). His studies in conversion were expanded with his newest book, Finding Faith, Losing Faith (Baylor, 2008), a book he co-authored with his former student Hauna Ondrey. His most recent books are The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible (Zondervan, 2008) and Fasting (Thomas Nelson, 2009).

Forthcoming books include a commentary on James (Eerdmans, 2010). He is presently researching “gospel” in the earliest Christian communities.

Other books include Who Do My Opponents Say I am? (co-edited with Joseph Modica), Jesus and His Death (Baylor, 2005), A Light among the Gentiles (Fortress, 1992), A New Vision for Israel (Eerdmans, 1999), Turning to Jesus (Westminster John Knox, 2002), Galatians (Zondervan, 1993) and 1 Peter (Zondervan, 1996), Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels (Baker, 1988), and he is a co-editor with J.B. Green and I.H. Marshall of the award-winning The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (IVP, 1992) as well as the co-editor, with J.D.G. Dunn, of The Historical Jesus in Current Study (Eisenbraun’s, 2005). He regularly contributes chapter length studies to dictionaries, encyclopedias, books and articles for magazines and online webzines. McKnight’s books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese.

McKnight’s award-winning blog, Jesus Creed, has been rated by Technorati.com as the #1 site for Emerging Church and continues to increase in readership.

Scot McKnight was elected into the Hall of Honor at Cornerstone University in honor of his basketball accomplishments during his college career. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and one grandchild: Aksel Donovan Nelson McKnight.